Ribon Therapeutics has shuttered after nine years, and one year after ending its preclinical research to focus on two early-stage PARP programs in cancer and atopic dermatitis.
The Cambridge, MA-based biotech was scheduled to have a public sale of most of its assets and IP in May, according to a notice. Ribon “has discontinued all material operations as of the date hereof,” according to the notice from April. Rock Creek Advisors was conducting the sale.
On its website, the New Jersey-based financial advisory firm and liquidation expert lists Ribon as one of its “transactions” alongside other biotech names like Evelo Biosciences, Ohana Biosciences and Goldfinch Bio.
Representatives for Ribon couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. The main phone number for the company appears to have been cut off. Its CEO recently became the leader of InduPro. Its chief scientific officer left for the same role at ROME Therapeutics earlier this year.
Ribon had raised about $200 million from at least half a dozen pharmaceutical companies or their corporate investment arms, including AbbVie, Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis and Takeda. It also secured financial backing from a well-known roster of firms like Deerfield, GV and The Column Group.
The startup last disclosed a $25 million investment from Pfizer in January 2023. It had also sold off a preclinical CD38-targeting small molecule to Boehringer Ingelheim for undisclosed terms in November 2022. Last summer, it made “cuts across the organization,” chief business officer Gary Sutton told Endpoints News at the time.
The company was developing an oral PARP7 inhibitor for solid tumors and an oral PARP14 inhibitor for atopic dermatitis. AstraZeneca and Merck’s multi-indicated Lynparza goes after PARP1 and PARP2. Ribon had hoped that going after different members of the enzyme class would help it to avoid toxicities. A few biotechs signed PARP deals last year, including Roger Perlmutter’s Eikon Therapeutics, Ariceum Therapeutics and Merck KGaA.